"Is God a Trinity of Persons? Definition - History - Scripture" by Sean Finnegan

[Music] i'm excited today to talk about what may be considered by some a controversial topic but it's it's an important topic and look we need to be able to talk about different things and not um be full of fear and never say anything i mean if the bible speaks on it we should speak on it right and so my goal for this morning is to really work through three main topics under the heading the trinity or no god is a trinity of persons let me say that again god is a trinity of persons that's my main title and i want to work through three main points on that one explain what that means just what the words mean two look at the history of this idea and then three do a biblical assessment see what the bible says now when it comes to any doctrine we should always measure it against scripture would you agree yeah so that's what we want to do so it might take us a little while to get to it but we're going to go to mark 12 eventually so if you want to go there now you can be ultra prepared for when we finally get to the bible part of this now the trinity is defined by wayne grudem in his classic systematic theology by three statements now of course it's a much bigger idea than that but if you nare if you boil it down these are the three statements that he says encapsulates the idea first god is three persons second each person is fully god and third there is one god and the trinity is often explained using this diagram that looks like a triangle i don't know if you've ever seen it before but it has god in the middle and it says the father is god the son is god the holy spirit is god but then when it comes to the edges the father is not the son the son is not the spirit the spirit is not the father and uh so there's there's different ways of thinking about uh this word person this is our first statement that we're working with here god is three persons in regular everyday language when we say person we just mean a human being right we say well how who's what person came over to your house or um how or we say plural people right sometimes in technical terminology we'll say persons but we mean people right individuals humans in theology ever since the fourth century well maybe even later no no it was in the fourth century i i did track this one down um maybe like the three sixties seventies eighties somewhere in there a new definition of the word person was invented so that it could talk about this idea of multiple persons within god and uh so i should also mention there are multiple versions of the trinity there's not the trinity there are various trinity understandings or trinities and i'm just presenting and working with what's called the social trinity it's the idea that god is composed of three selves that are individuals or persons and that each one of those persons is distinct from the other two so the father has his own mind that is distinct from the son's mind which is which is also distinct from the spirit's mind they have independence of thought and we can at least say will and we know that for sure because in the garden of gethsemane the sun said not my will but your will be done right so it's clear there's a difference there can be a difference in wills uh this happens all the time with regular people right i want to do something and john wants to do something else we have a different will and one of us has to um compromise or or or change or whatever uh and so in that example in the garden of gethsemane the sun uh adopted the father's will even though it was against what he wanted to do all right now the point one here is that god is three persons point two is that each one of those persons is fully god um and so i was thinking about the term fully god and i think the best way to explain it is to look at god's essential attributes what characteristics are required in order for you to use the g word of something or someone right uh and so these are nine that i came up with there's probably more and you know if you're talking about like a hindu god that list is probably gonna be different than this this list here i'm talking about a christian god something a god who fits with what we see in scripture uh so the first one and these are not in any particular order is eternal and that's the idea that if you're going to be god you just can't have a beginning that makes sense right you have to have always been there um presumably you will always be there as well you'll be eternal in both directions uh and then the second one is kind of an obscure little phrase it's a latin phrase it's pronounced assay and it means from himself and the idea there is really that god is self-sufficient there is nothing beyond god that powers god right you know what powers us food oxygen right we even need love and other things that are less quantifiable in order to survive and thrive in life right god is assay so if there was no universe god would still be there god has no source he's there's no battery pack powering god or his nuclear fusion reactor that he depends on he's not contingent he's not dependent he's assay number three he's the greatest being it's not like there's another one above him number four he's omnipotent we get to the omnis right omnipotent omniscient omnipresent omnipotent means all-powerful uh that and to be technical i know this is a little philosophical but the idea is a philosophical idea the idea of the trinity so it's hard not to go there but uh omnipotent doesn't mean he can do anything it means he can do anything that can be done right so he can't make a rock so big he can't move it right that's just a contradiction he can't make a square circle or a married bachelor or a hot ice cube you know these are all just contradictory terms so that they're that's not what i mean by amnesty i mean if it can be done he can do it um omniscient is all-knowing he knows everything that can be known omnipresent means that he's everywhere present he's able to be anywhere that there is that exists uh those you guys agree with these things right i mean these are these are kind of common sense maybe you don't have them labeled as i have them here but you you probably think of god in these terms it's a pretty typical way of thinking of god and then we have immortal here immortal is the idea that god cannot die which means if you shot god with a gun he would live if you if you dropped a nuclear bomb on god god would survive right there's no way to kill god because in that i there means not immortal means can die so god not can die he's immortal and that's good that's good for us right it makes god more dependable if he can't die and then invisible there's actually scripture that says god is invisible it's one of his characteristics now can have people seen god yes but what did they see did they really see god in his totality or do they see some manifestation of god like for example uh moses with the burning bush right god wasn't the fire god manifested his presence through the fire or um with mount sinai when he came down he torched the mountain and there was an earthquake and there was thunder and it was just this awesome sight and moses was there and the children of israel and they're like god has come down on the mountain right but then later on god says to moses moses like show me your glory god says well there's a little problem with that if you see me if you really see me you die so uh they make an arrangement and god kind of hides them in a cleft of a rock and passes by and moses pops out a little after and just from that 40 days the glory is on his face he has to wear a veil when he goes back to the people uh just the residual effects you know so i mean god is intense and uh he is he is invisible he can he can manifest himself but he is invisible and he's untemptable i don't my uh spell check failed on that one and said it wasn't a word but when i typed it into the internet it said it was okay so i'm gonna go with it i think you know what i mean by untemptable it means you can't tempt him james says god cannot be tempted with evil neither does he tempt anyone with evil so like even if you said well god if if you um if you give me this promotion you know i'll do this for you it probably is not going to work you know just do what you're supposed to do and you know let god be god so uh anyhow this is these are what i call essential attributes so if any person or being wants to be considered as god that person or being would need to have these essential attributes the essential means you have to have it uh as opposed to optional attributes would be uh another idea all right so point two uh right here each person is fully god um i want to use this analogy here this is actually a a real uh set of twins brittany and abby hensel uh they're about 30 now they're two persons in one body and they're a school teacher i don't know i'm getting confused with my language they're school teachers but they always are in the same classroom you know because they share the same body and it's it's really fascinating there's all this stuff online about them they had their own reality tv show for a minute there and uh they have a they have separate hearts and stomachs and spines and lungs and spinal cord uh but then pretty much everything else is shared so like one set of small intestines you know for both and everything else so and one controls one arm and one leg and the other controls the other arm and the other leg i mean it's really amazing that they were able to figure out how to drive you know they had to pass the driver's test twice because they're technically two persons right and they uh they get you know there's all kinds of legal fascinations with this i'm getting distracted but my point is and they seem like lovely people i should say that too my point is that these are two persons and one being or one body one human being body in two persons um and so that is an interesting way of thinking of god could be like three faces or three heads in one body um or the the and this is not like a joke this is some like very dedicated christian artist who thought this is what uh his god looked like um or how we could portray it here's another picture and you can see the classic trinity triangle in this picture and i don't know if i can zoom in i guess not maybe i can yeah you can see it says uh pater on the upper left and phillius is so patera is father filius filius's son and then on the bottom spiritual sanctus holy spirit and then uh in the middle you have the word for god is is not is nice so this is this is a kind of a classic way of portraying god as having these three faces in some art but the problem with this way of thinking about god whether three heads or three faces doesn't really matter the problem with it is that this uh statement is that each person is not part of god each person is fully god okay now when i showed you those twins that were conjoined you wouldn't be able to say that britney is fully that body or that that human being no because she's only partially and then her twin sister is also going to join us partially there are both partially that human body so you the faces and the heads analogy just fails it just it fails to represent accurately what the idea is um which really kind of makes it difficult to think about because that was the obvious analogy to work with and then we have the third statement so i'm just working this is just definitions i'm just starting here okay definitions god is three persons we know what that means now it means each one has its own center of consciousness i guess i i don't i'm struggling with words to describe it but something like that each of those persons is fully god not just part of god and then last of all there's only one god um so god the trinity idea it just is these three things all together now when it comes to history i want to move to my second point let's look at the history of development of the idea i studied church history i have my master's degree in it i could go on for hours on just this topic i've got huge parts of the seven ecumenical councils memorized we could we could have just so much fun here if you gave me three hours we could order in some lunch individually packaged covet style we'll get it done what do you say everyone's just like meet you next week pastor all right uh so i'm not gonna do that i am gonna be incredibly brief here you know maybe five ten minutes i'm not really sure we'll see what happens uh but i wanna look at stages of trinitarian development so the first person in history whoever used the term trinity as a christian is a man named theophilus of antioch in the year 184. uh those of you who are familiar with the timeline of christ about how many years after christ is this 150 give or take years so a century and a half after christ was the first time in human history that any christian used the t word and what's interesting about theophilus of antioch is that his trinity was god his word and his wisdom it wasn't the father the son and the holy spirit it was god his word and his wisdom so it's really not anything like what i just described to you whatsoever not even close so that but that's the earliest usage of the word then in the year 208 a latin author by the name of tertullian of carthage i believe he wrote a book against praxis in which he used the word trinitas the actual latin word for trinity and he had he he did have the father and the son and the holy spirit as the three in his trinity the by the way trinity just means three right like unity divinity trinity right like it's that's all this word means the question is what do you mean by the three um because you know i believe in uh you know uh the united states and freedom and the constitution you know like does that mean they're all mysteriously one essence no i mean it's just three things right we're talking about something a little more sophisticated than that but here's the thing about tertullian is that he believed the father was greater than the son and the son was greater than the holy spirit and he believed that the the part of the substance the stuff out of which god is made the father has made went to make the son so he he's derived from the same stuff the matter of the father but a smaller portion so this is now getting a little closer to the idea that i described but still definitely would be considered heresy today by trinitarians even though tertullian is considered by some the father of the idea and then we had a man named alexander of alexandria it reminds me of uh john johnson right alexander of alexandria and uh he decided he was the bishop of the churches in egypt northern egypt especially but probably at that point all of egypt was basically under his uh diocese or jurisdiction and he decided that the sun was eternal tertullian believed that the sun had a beginning that there was you know a time of creation for the son alexander of alexandria said no no no the son is eternal he has always existed and when he did that one of his pastors in his network of churches in egypt said look this is not how we grew up this is not how i learned the faith i can't go with you here and that man was then not only fired from being a pastor by alexander but he was also kicked out of the church so that he could not attend any churches in all of egypt um and this initiated a huge controversy that culminated in the year 325 when the emperor himself got involved and held a council called the council of nicaea in which they decided definitively the question about how whether or not the sun has a beginning and they decided the sun is eternal he does not have a beginning we we stamp that as our official doctrine and secondly that the son and the father are of the same substance they're not a different substance they're similar but the same substance so that's really something that came in an ico but even at nicaea you know what we're missing there's nothing about the holy spirit in the in the creed of nicea they just said and we believe in the holy spirit that's it it's like come on you guys so we had to wait till 381 to define the holy spirit as being in any way on par with the father and the son but even in the the the council of constantinople the first constantinopolitan council of 381 we still we're still lacking so much we don't have the word trinity in the creed we don't have the concept well we might have the concept but it's not stated anywhere of person like like we have today co-equal co-eternal none of that language is there in the year 381 yet it's still in the process of development well all they basically did was they took nicea that creed there and they added to it and they said and the holy spirit should be worshipped that's all they really did they just added in that part about the holy spirit should be worshipped they didn't say the holy spirit was god even or fully god or co-equal or any of these other terms that we get later it's actually not until the 500s at the earliest sixth century that we get what's called the athanasian creed and the historians are not really sure what when this creed first got got written it wasn't written by athanasius and it's not a creed so there you go but uh that's that's the name that stuck and it's called the athanasian creed and really in the sixth century finally we have a fully orbed doctrine of the trinity that i just described to you now for the math people in the room let's assume it was the year 5 30 when this creed got developed and written down how many years after christ would that be 500 years until we have a clear articulation agreed upon by the church of what we would today just call the doctrine of the trinity but wait there's more as soon as the doctrine of the trinity started to get started and the idea of the sun being eternal and fully god and of the same substance as god came about the second question was well if he's god how is he a man how can he be god and a man at the same time and this is the doctrine of dual natures which caused all kinds of other councils so in ephesus in 431 the question was is mary the bearer of god is she theotokos it's the technical term for it and they decided yes she is the bearer of god's nature in 451 there was another council on the same thing and the question was is god's does christ's divine nature subsume his human nature or does he still have two natures correct answer they said was no he still has two natures and they developed a whole new creed that the child sidonian creed is is epic you should totally read it i mean you really want to like work out the brain muscle good luck uh constantinople 2 asks the question are we sure about the dual natures doctrine did we get that right it's a century later it's still controversial they said no we we did get it right and you know these other views are wrong and it has to be the way chalcedon said then we had constantinople three does christ have one or two wills well he has a divine nature he has a human nature does he have two wills in his own body or does he only have one will correct answer two wills didn't see that one coming and then nicea ii this is the second council of nicea in 787 and this asks the question does worship being an icon of christ have you seen an icon these are these are icons right here this kind of artwork does worshipping an icon of christ divide the natures because you can only represent his humanity you can't represent his divinity with art right so and they said no it doesn't devise nature icons are okay and that was in 787. so what what am i why am i going over all this with you i'm going over this all with you because i love church history no it's because because it's fascinating no it's because i'm just making one simple point and that is that this idea developed over time it was controversial for century after century after century we don't have the last aspect of it buttoned up until the year 787 when the last council of nicaea came together and so it's an idea that developed over time it took centuries to hammer out it was not handed down by the apostles that doesn't mean it's wrong it just means that it's an explanation of what the bible says rather than something within the bible itself you understand the difference so like resurrection of christ you can find a verse in there that says christ was raised on the third day right you could you can find that in first corinthians 15 like verse 3ish right however you can't find this but the trinity could still be right it's just not you know necessarily explained in scripture um which is why we need to now look at what the bible says and we need to use the bible to assess this idea now i realized that um not everyone agrees with my view on this and i i would say that if the if you're in that if you're in that situation just hear me out you know you hear what i have to say and you check it yourself against the scripture because ultimately we're all going to stand before god for what we believe and how we live it's it's not going to be you know ruby can't stand before christ on the day of judgment be like well you know sean said now having said that i am convinced of this it's not like a theory i'm working out in front of you this is really something that i think happens to be true um but let's look at each of the the three statements again by uh this is these are the statements from wayne gruden but they're they're widely held by a lot of a lot of people who believe in the trinity all right so the first one is god is three persons second each person is fully god three there is one god all right so let's just go through each one of the three and compare it against scripture are you ready are you in mark chapter 12. all right about an hour ago right uh so let's let's take a look at mark chapter 12. i gotta get there myself just doing all this talking all right and it says and one of the scribes came up and heard them disputing with one another and seeing that he answered them well asked him which commandment is the most important of all that's mark 12 28 verse 29 jesus answered the most important of all is hear o israel the lord our god the lord is one and you shall love the lord your god with all your heart with all your soul with all your mind with all your strength this is not a controversial verse right this is something you've probably read a million times heard preached uh read about in books heard in maybe some songs even um that uh god is one and we are to love him with everything here's what's so interesting about that when it comes to this statement god is three persons is that in verse 29 jesus says the lord is one he doesn't say three he says one and then when you look down in verse um then he says the second verse thirty one is you shall love your neighbor as yourself there is no other commandment greater than these verse 32 is really important now jesus conversation partner this scribe we know is a jew he repeats back to jesus what he just heard in his own words and then jesus agrees back again right so jesus speaks and then the scribe speaks explaining how the scribe how the scribe understands what jesus just said and then jesus says you're not you're not far from the kingdom of god like you're doing all right buddy you know like that's a compliment in the context here so what does the scribe say in verse 32 and the scribe said to him you are right teacher you have truly said that he is one and there is no other besides him now in english we call the word he and the word him pronouns that's that's just what those words are and in english we have singular pronouns and plural pronouns the plural pronoun would be they and them the singular is he and him and his you wanna throw it in there uh and so why do we have singular and plural pronouns one designates a single person one designates multiple people could be two it could be two thousand doesn't matter we still would use they now if god is three persons you need to use plural pronouns and this scribe doesn't believe god is three persons i think everyone would understand that because this scribe is a jewish person he doesn't even really believe in jesus he's just asking him questions and so the scribe says and to love him or so the scribe says he is one there is no other besides him so jesus says the lord is one the scribe says i hear what you're saying you're saying he is one there's no other besides him and then verse 33 and to love him with all the heart with all the understanding with all the strength and to love one's neighbor as oneself is much better than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices and when jesus saw that he answered like an idiot and totally missed the point he said oh thick of heart will you ever believe that i am on the same level as the father no that's not what the scripture says it says that when jesus saw that he answered wisely he said you are not far from the kingdom of god right so jesus and the scribe agree that god is one person and the reason why i say is one person is because they use a word that can only mean one person the word he as opposed to the word they and then not only does he say he is one he says he is one and there is no other besides him this is just this is just grammar i mean i don't really know any other way to look at that particular statement there and then of course this is not isolated every time every time people in scripture speak to or about god they use singular pronouns every time now when somebody speaks to god they typically will use the word you now in english the word you well at least in new york can mean singular or plural well in the south it's different right in the south you mean singular and what means plural y'all okay well we're not in the south we're not in the south right however whether we're looking at the old testament or the new testament the hebrew or the greek they do have two words for you they have a singular word for you and a plural word for you and so there's no question about it every time anyone speaks to god using the word you it's the singular every time because god is a singular person not three persons or two persons or four persons or however many persons furthermore every time somebody speaks about god like jesus and the scribe did they say he they don't say she should they don't say they they don't say it they always say he for example john 3 16 for god so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son or his one and only son so i i'm having some real biblical issues with this three persons god being three persons idea because of these singular ways of speaking about god everywhere everywhere else let's go to first corinthians chapter two and move on to a second point the remember there are three points which is nifty i got to give wayne gruden credit for that you know he's describing the trinity and he used three points to do it you know that was slick um so the first point once again was god is three persons we have some problems with that with biblical scripture the second point was each person is fully god and i want to look at two aspects of that one is the spirit and then the other is jesus right so i don't think anybody in the world is gonna question at least if they're a christian that the father is fully god right i mean that's just there's nothing to talk about there we all just agree on that so the question is is the spirit a person who is fully god is jesus a person who is fully god and so to look at this i want to say god's spirit is not a different person from him as your spirit is not a different person from you um let's break that out a little bit the holy spirit never gets a name in scripture now that might not seem like a big deal to you but in the biblical culture your name is everything and if you have a significant significant experience your name changes you see that all throughout scripture like saul and paul and a abram and abraham and sarai and sarah and so on and so forth right um the holy spirit never has a name we know the name of the father is yahweh they know this name of the son is jesus uh what's the name of the holy spirit spirit is is a thing it's a it's a maybe you don't want to use the word thing but spirit is a is a word that describes a category right it's it's not it's not a name you know i know that because you have a spirit too and if your spirit has a name we might have to go take you to some counseling unless it's your name right the spirit also never sends greetings all throughout paul's epistles grace and peace to you from god the father and the lord jesus christ why isn't the spirit saying hello why isn't the spirit saying grace and peace so it's grace and peace just from the father from god the father and from our lord jesus christ it should say also and from the spirit why doesn't it say i'm from the spirit left out of fellowship uh and i i refer to first john 1 3 there indeed our fellowship is with the father and with his son jesus christ why don't we have why did he get left out in that verse intrinsic to the father's this is the the key point here first corinthians 2 11 says for who knows a person's thoughts except the spirit of that person that's true right i'm looking at you right now i don't really know what your thoughts are some of you might be thinking wow this is really boring others might be thinking well i'm really angry at this preacher because he's disagreeing with me me uh other people might be thinking what am i gonna eat for lunch you know i i can't tell by looking at you what you're thinking you know those are your thoughts you know who know who or what or i don't know what to call it knows your thoughts your spirit your own spirit knows your thoughts that's that's the part of you that's invisible i guess i don't know i'm not trying to be overly technical here once again first corinthians 2 11 for who knows this person's thoughts except the spirit of that person which is in him so also no one comprehends the thoughts of god except the spirit of god so the spirit is personal but it's not a different person from god just like your spirit is personal but it's not a different person from you and if it is a different person from you we have a word for that it's a psychological disorder right that's troubling when that happens you ever meet somebody that talks about him or herself in the third person i don't know if sean really wants to talk about this next subject what it's it's it's a little it's a little just it was a good seinfeld episode on that back in the day this guy just always referred to himself and nobody knew like who's this other guy he's talking about he was talking about himself anyhow um what else he's never prayed to the holy spirit never receives prayers father receives prayers and uh jesus uh to much much less degree but there's nothing ever mentioned as somebody praying to the holy spirit left out of key creedal statements uh for example first corinthians 8 6 let's go let's go look at that one can you flip over there for me first corinthians 8 6. there are a bunch of different little creedal or semi-creedal statements credo is like hey this is what we believe that kind of a statement in scripture they're not fancy like the later creeds but they're significant first corinthians 8 6 says yet for us there is one god the father from whom are all things and for whom we exist and one lord jesus christ through whom are all things and through whom we exist and one spirit why are you looking up your bible doesn't say in one spirit yeah neither does mine it's something why is it just one god and then one lord why doesn't you have also one spirit if we have all three as part of the picture from the beginning and then in mark 13 32 jesus talks about how no one knows the day or the hour neither the angels nor the son but the father alone okay where's the spirit there why is the spirit wouldn't the spirit know the day or the hour i would think so i mean why not just men i mean even the angels got to mention there right but not the spirit so over and over uh if the spirit were a person different from the father and the son we would have expected these to be in scripture in fact they're not in scripture so that gives us good reason to suspect that that's not the best interpretation of what the bible is saying and then the spirit never is given a throne or reigns whereas jesus says if you overcome i will have you sit in my throne as i overcame and i sat in the father's throne in revelation 3 21. all right on to the next point the next point is to look at this idea that jesus is fully god well this is not that complicated because you remember that list of essential attributes of what it means to be god we could just measure jesus against those what scripture says about jesus and does he line up does he have those essential attributes or does he not have those essential attributes turns out jesus is not eternal he is begotten and some people want to argue with that and say well you can be eternally begotten do we know what begotten means here i mean i i have begotten four sons they're all in this building right now not all in this room thankfully uh because the youngest one is three and and he he would not really be tracking along right now um i've gotten four sons right if if if you are the same age as a relative the same exact age we call you twins right brother and sister sister and sister brother and brother right we call you siblings we call you twins we don't call you father and son if you're the same age it just it's just not the language we would use and yet scripture always likes to call jesus the son and call yahweh the father and so in matthew 1 18 says the beginning of jesus christ it actually uses the word genesis in matthew 1 18. uh not ah say let's look at john 6 57 that's a good verse for us to to flip over to remember assay is the idea that uh it's he's from himself he he is contained within himself he doesn't depend on anyone else in order to be god you have to be assay and the other term for this if you want to look it up if you really want to nerd out is assaiti just put an i-t-y combine it into one word a saity um but it's really from this latin phrase so john 6 verse 57 is actually there's a bunch of john like this but this this is really just the clearest one john 6 57 says as the living father sent me and i live because of the father so whoever feeds on me he also will live because of me it's a beautiful statement right it's saying jesus depends on the father for life itself and that if you feed on him then you can depend on jesus for life itself it's a beautiful thing but inadvertently what he's also saying is that he's not assay he's not independent he's not self-existent if he's depending on someone else for life and uh so it is also in some other scriptures where jesus says he can do nothing on his own repeatedly like john 5 19 john 5 30 and other places he's not as great as the father he is not the greatest and you know that might sound really rude but like jesus said those exact words my father is greater than i in john 14 28 so this is not me knocking jesus down this is me listening to jesus and repeating his words and that's different right gee and by the way jesus is awesome he's messiah he's you know uh virgin born full of the spirit did the miracles walked on the water died for our sins he's coming back you know he's in heaven at the right hand of god highest position in the whole universe next to the father right i mean it's not like i'm trying to bring jesus down i'm just trying to assess if this theory about understanding who god and jesus and the spirit are is good or if it or if it fails that's all i'm trying to do here and then number four jesus is not omnipotent and i say that because jesus said i can do nothing on my own if somebody says to you i can do everything on my own they're probably just full of it right they're probably just but if they weren't full of it and they really could do everything on their own they would be omnipotent jesus said literally the opposite he didn't even say i could do some things on my own he said i can do nothing on my own accord or on my own initiative in john 5 19 and and some other places too in john there's at least four or five of them jesus didn't know the day or the hour no one knows the day or the hour not the angels nor the son but the father alone mark 13 32. so then we have immortal i'm so thankful that jesus is not immortal if he was immortal he couldn't die if he couldn't die we'd be on our sins we'd have no hope right it's so good that jesus is mortal or was mortal at least at the time and you know god can't die jesus died so there's a real there's a real difficulty there now some people will say all right sean i hear what you're saying but jesus didn't really die like he just his soul separated from his body for three days okay whatever so that's your definition of death that's what he can't do immortal means you can't die so it doesn't matter how you define the word die to be this or that or the other that's what he can't do whatever it is you think dying is is what he can't do we know he died that's like the cornerstone of our faith that he died for our sins on to number seven jesus is not invisible you guys know you noticed that right people saw him in his ministry right whereas it says that uh god is invisible uh and number eight jesus was temptable in his ministry in his life it says in hebrews 4 15 that he was tempted in all points like we are yet without sin god cannot be tempted with sin with evil all right and then the last statement of that definition was there is one god and i'm gonna go ahead and agree with that one i'm gonna i'm just gonna i'm just gonna give that to wayne gruder and be like yeah man we're on the same page right because it says in first timothy 2 5 there is one god father son and holy spirit no wait it didn't say that it didn't say that it says there is one god and one mediator between god and men the man christ jesus there's one god there's one mediator between god and people human beings and it's jesus christ and so jesus is the bridge jesus goes between but which side does jesus really belong to the man christ jesus he it says that he is part of the human race and then uh another scripture on this jesus in john 17 3 says this is eternal life that they may know you the only true god and jesus christ whom you have sent and so if i say that um somebody is the only true you know president of a company there can't be somebody else that's also the president of that company or else you're not the only true president um so i want to just conclude by saying that not only do the words trinity same substance eternal generation three persons etc etc fail to occur in the bible but scripture like and i i challenge you go look it up type it into the internet type it into your bible software look up the word trinity look up the the phrase three persons look up the the the words uh one essence one subs go ahead type it in it'll say zero results zero results co eternal zero reserved results consubstantial all this terminology that is necessary to talk about the idea fails to appear in scripture but that's not a total defeater the total defeater is that it lacks any explanation of the concept the concept is missed not just the words but the ideas are missing for the trinity furthermore if the apostles taught the trinity why is it missing from their recorded sermons and acts you know we see what the apostles taught we can look at the book of acts we can see them actually doing evangelism they're not preaching the trinity as part of that gospel message if the apostle paul taught the trinity why didn't any of his opponents argue against it either during his missionary journeys or among the many issues he dealt with in his letters i mean between his missionary journey journeys where he gets beaten up from town to town to town surely somebody would have gotten mad about the trinity if that was part of his message that he was bringing people and yet nobody ever mentions it and then you look at his epistles right like especially first corinthians i mean there's everything that can go wrong did go wrong in this church except for they just easily accepted this doctrine of the trinity that caused i don't know five centuries of controversy later on come on um it's it's it's too too big of a pill to swallow furthermore if jesus was merely playing the role of a lowly human in his own incarnation why is it that after his resurrection ascension and exaltation he still refers to the father as my god like i get it if jesus is playing the role of a human while he's here on earth but if even after he's ascended now he's in heaven and he's glorified and everything else he's still acting like he's not god and somebody else is and the father never says to jesus my god but jesus says to the father my god in revelation actually in revelation 3 12 jesus says it about four times in one verse and he's destined to remain in subjection to god for all eternity first corinthians 15 28 says he must reign until all his enemies are under his feet and then he will hand over the kingdom to god that god may be all in all he himself is going to be in subjection forever that's not equal and that's why i think this idea is a myth i think it's a myth because biblically it fails so i don't know you have to think about it yourself and pray about it obviously this is you know a big topic and we're going to come back to it again next week uh when we hear a little bit more about how jesus died for our sins and how that plays into this whole subject so let's pray father we ask that you would be with us that you would help us to understand who you are who your son is and your holy spirit as well god we don't come to you with uh with arrogance or pride we come to you with humility wanting to receive from you from your scripture we don't have any commitment to some tradition or some um creed or statement of beliefs our commitment is to you above all else so we ask that you enlighten the eyes of our understanding that we may know you and the hope of your calling and your inheritance in the saints and these other matters that are just so important for us to understand we ask for you to bless us this day as we live for you we pray this in the name of jesus christ amen

Channel: 21st Century Reformation

Views: 6,093

Rating: 4.8666668 out of 5

Keywords: What is the definition of the social Trinity?, Who is Sean Finnegan?, What is Biblical Unitarianism?

Id: TMaW7YRxRWM

Length: 50min 34sec (3034 seconds)

Published: Sun Jan 10 2021